The program is President Obama’s most ambitious immigration initiative by far, a sweeping exercise of executive authority after Congress failed to pass the Dream Act, legislation he supported that would have given legal status to the young immigrants. It is a major bid by Mr. Obama to win back Latino voters who were souring on him after his administration deported nearly 1.2 million immigrants, most of them Latinos, in the last three years.

Interesting that the NYT forefronts: 1. Obama's power grab ("sweeping"!), and 2. that Obama was in trouble with Latinos ("souring"!), and 3. that the executive-power version of the Dream Act is motivated by raw political self-interest ("a major bid... to win"!).

Buried a few paragraphs down:

Because deferrals are temporary and must be renewed after two years — when Mr. Obama may no longer occupy the White House — administration officials have been uncertain how many illegal immigrants would come forward to apply.

So it might not be anything like 1.7 million. What's the psychology here? If you've seen 1.2 million deported in the last 3.5 years, would you come forward, identifying yourself as illegal, for only 2 years of immunity? Would you take the bait? If not, then Obama's political power grab is pure gesture, but why would the gesture work? If people think he's luring us out of the shadow to make easier targets of us, it doesn't. It's even counterproductive if people think he's using us any way he wants, blowing hot and cold, not because he cares or even out of a coherent plan, but according to his own transitory interests.

31 comments:

I thought no one was illegal! Honestly though, this is a bad idea. Doing this makes it harder now to reach a compromise, because, again one side sees the other taking unilateral overreaching actions. It just forces both sides further into their trenches because they feel the other won't bargain in good faith.

Obama lost legislatively; that should have been a sign to come back with different legislation. This is not how you build bridges.

... Reading this, it makes it painfully clear we need to find easier ways to get people to come here legally. The government needs to take a serious look at how to make that process faster, more efficient and cleaner, so that we don't have what looks like a generation of people here illegally. It's bad for them for a host of reasons and bad for the country to not know what's going on. Maybe we should stop having hearings on baseball and start having hearings on how to get our immigration system running as efficiently as possible. I'm willing to bet most people would come here legally were the process doable.

I'm trying to think of ways to help Obama get reelected, it seems he has competition this time. He could offer actual aliens from outer space temporary visas and invite them to vote anywhere that has same day registration and no id requirement, I don't know where those backward states are but professionals do, have the aliens vote in those states and then send them off or let them stay whatever they wish just so they're allowed to vote, and having made the offer, they'll certainly vote for Obama and not for Romney who failed to have the foresight or the consideration to extend the invitation.

Too bad all those criminals don't know their history better. The first thing that Hitler did with the Jews in Poland was not to gas them, it was to register them.

So going down and giving your name, address, parent's names, date of your lawbreaking, etc, all based on the belief that an extra-legal executive policy memo can't ever be undone by either ripping it up in January, or by Congress passing a law forbidding it, seems naive, to say the least.

Raise your hand if you're sick unto death of the games and just want government that passes sensible laws using the approved process and then enforces them and is capable of taking no for an answer regarding the laws that the legislature declines to pass.

It's almost--almost!--starting to seem like President Obama has either no understanding of or respect for the rule of law in these here United States.

And as to the pandering, or whatnot--99 percent of this country is too busy living their lives to parse all the layers of secret code and attempts at manipulation, the laying out of which is an Althouse specialty.

If Romney wins, then in two years he will be under consderable pressure to take away this exemption and perhaps deport those who applied for it. This will be a great victory for the Democrats. The point of the game is not to help the illegals but to portray the Republicans as their oppressors. If Democrats win, they can renew the exemption for another two years. That'll keep the turnout high......The economic advantage that the illegals have is their illegality. If employers have to start paying for their social security and insurance, then the illegals will lose their competitive advantage. If you wish to keep the illegals employed, keep them illegal.

I thought no one was illegal! Honestly though, this is a bad idea. Doing this makes it harder now to reach a compromise, because, again one side sees the other taking unilateral overreaching actions. It just forces both sides further into their trenches because they feel the other won't bargain in good faith.

Obama lost legislatively; that should have been a sign to come back with different legislation. This is not how you build bridges.

“If I were someone who wanted a special allowance in the law for minors who came into the country illegally like the “DREAM Act,” I’d be pretty upset with President Obama for doing an end-run around Congress. What’s he’s accomplished is a temporary “amnesty” that will likely only last for the remainder of his presidency (which could be less than seven months) that can just as easily be undone by the next President while at the same time solidifying opposition in the next Congress to anything more permanent like the “DREAM Act.” Obama may get a short-term gain in the polls but it will be at the expense of the long-term goals of the constituency that he’s pandering to. ”

If people think he's luring us out of the shadow to make easier targets of us,

THIS. The illegals who live and work in the agricultural industry here would view it this way. Most don't have bank accounts because they don't trust the government as a general rule, based on their experiences in Mexico with corruption at all levels of government. The expect to be ripped off, cheated and to pay bribes.

They use cash because it is untraceable. They trust only when you are included in their network of "known" to be trusted. There are merchants, usually the grocery stores, who will cash their checks for a fee. They cash the checks because they know the rancher/farmer/grower who issued the check and the merchant knows the illegal as a person who is upstanding, working and will shop at his store.

They trust: the Church and those who go to the same church with them (as I do), the people who will hire them for day labor no questions asked and who pay them well (as we do), those who speak spanish (as I do but badly lol). But the trust is still guarded.

Perhaps this is generalized to our rural area where people tend to know one another better and may be different in the cities. /shrug

If you think that they will suddenly reverse generations of mistrust and come out of the shadows on the off chance that THIS time it will be different. Think again.

The young generation of those who have been raised in this country all their lives, but who are illegal may decide to do so.....but many won't because it would be exposing their parents and other family members.

If Romney wins, then in two years he will be under consderable pressure to take away this exemption and perhaps deport those who applied for it.

Is there any reason that Romney would have to wait two years? Since President Obama offered a two year deferment via executive order rather than getting it passed through Congress, AFAIK a President Romney would no more be bound by that then one Congress can bind a future Congress or one court can bind a future court (of the same level).

As far as how to handle it, if I were advising President Romney, I’d repeal the deferment at the same time that I repealed a bunch of Obama’s other executive orders (sort of a “clean sweep”). No fanfare or special attention to it – just one of many executive orders that were undone. Also I wouldn’t issue any special enforcement orders to target those who received a deferment. They’d be in the same place they were before and would have to either follow the laws as they exist or risk being picked up and deported like any other illegal alien. Actually if anything I think repealing this unilateral amnesty might make it somewhat easier to find a long term compromise with Congress (if that’s the route we want to go as a nation) because it shows that Romney unlike Obama is patient and skilled enough to work with Congress.

Why anyone would trust a democrat about illegal immigration is beyond me.(slaps forehead)Forgot. Most democratic voters are at best gullible, and the precious Indies too distracted by American Idol to care.

Un-Constitutionally changing US law by Presidential fiat and dereliction of duty as the chief executive in order to receive accolades in the press for generously putting the interests of illegal aliens ahead of the citizenry of the US without accomplishing any meaningful change?

Partly because the facts are not evidence. "Buried in a later paragraph" is precisely the approach. I try to follow these issues, and didn't know until this post that the "amnesty" had a two year expiration date.

I should have. Everything Obama does seems to have an expiration date, mostly after the election.